BTTF "Share your disappointment" Thread

Okay, so 2 months or so ago, I posted a comment about how this game was going to suck for the following reasons..

A.) Point and clickB.) Linear gameplay

After getting bitched out by telltale radicals I thought, well...maybe it won't be as bad as I am thinking. And at least it's a modern, 3D BTTF game. God was I wrong. After playing the demo and watching in horror at the gameplay videos online..I totally lost all hope in getting an awesome BTTF game. And the worst part is, look at the Jurassic Park trailer. It looks awesome. It's not cartoony, and from what Ive read its NOT going to be point and click. Apparently the designer said it wouldnt feel right to walk around aimlessly solving puzzles..? So why the hell is the Back to the Future game just that?! Whats the difference between BTTF and JP? Theyre both adventure movies. So why does JP get to be an awesome adventure game and BTTF, which is probably more popular anyway, is a cartoony, restricted, puzzle game? I just don't get it.....And to those of you out there who are going to rip me to shreads about not knowing what BTTF is about or sarcasticly tell me theyre sorry that its not like GTA, this time I know I am right that BTTF did not get the game it deserved.

So anyone out there who agrees with me, share your story. And if you disagree with me, please tell me why I should like the BTTF game.

I don't think we can speculate as to WHY certain things are lacking. We don't know. It could be any number of things. Telltale's own management, time crunch, Universal, Bob Gale(honestly, I personally don't think this one makes much sense), or simply the designers messing up or getting the wrong idea for any of a wide variety of reasons. All we can really say for certain is that this game has almost no interactivity to it, there's almost no content outside of cutscenes and correct puzzle solutions, exploration is stymied at every turn with invisible walls, an uncooperative camera, and entire sections of the game world NOT EXISTING, and the game hints so strongly about puzzles that you never are given enough room to think. The REASONS for that, well, that's going to remain a mystery, I think.

The last time Bob Gale wasn't involved, we got the shit that was LJN's version, which Bob Gale has told fans to not buy.

This logic makes no sense. I can also say "The last time they tried to make a Back to the Future video game, we got the shit that was LJN's version, which Bob Gale told fans not to buy", or "the last time they released a game on consoles", or "the last time they made a game starring Marty", and it would be just as relevant. Are you really telling me that NO MATTER WHAT ELSE CHANGES, Bob Gale's involvement or lack thereof is the ONE THING that will doom a project? Do you REALLY think LJN would have done an excellent job if he was involved? Because the NES games were bad for GAMEPLAY reasons too, you know.

I'm disappointed that people were disappointed in this game. It was an excellent addition to the BTTF series. There are few things I could have wanted more from a sequel. It felt a bit restricted by the adventure game genre of gameplay (though I couldn't think of a better genre for it).

Long story short, I was pleasantly surprised by it, not let down.

The restriction is not because of the genre, but because of how easy the game is. Monkey Island 2 had you sailing around from island to island in freedom, and that is how old? Im sure freedom from time to time was possible.

You guys got me wrong. I wasn't implying Bob Gale had no talent or sucked at writing for video games.

I'm saying that his involvement was limited, and clearly, telltale just took his concepts and dragged them on for far too long.

Dashing, how can you not understand, you who noticed to incredible power of the "plot convenience", that makes everything appear or disappear by magic when it needs to ?

When you get this kind of lazy writing for the whole game, that's clearly because they just couldn't handle it and had to drag things on. The story just wasn't controlled, they gave themselves tasks and "things to complete" among each episode, even if it didn't make sense or was bad for the sake of pacing (and you have to admit the whole thing is pretty horrid).

The restriction is not because of the genre, but because of how easy the game is. Monkey Island 2 had you sailing around from island to island in freedom, and that is how old? Im sure freedom from time to time was possible.

If two games have to be brought up when talking about BTTF, it's Blade Runner and Shadow Of Memories. It meets all of those "we want newcomers to the genre" requirements BTTF tried to achieve, while having obvious qualities (as games, even if it was cutscene/story heavy), and interaction, while BTTF had none.

SPOILER WARNING:

Dashing, how can you not understand, you who noticed to incredible power of the "plot convenience", that makes everything appear or disappear by magic when it needs to ?

When you get this kind of lazy writing for the whole game, that's clearly because they just couldn't handle it and had to drag things on. The story just wasn't controlled, they gave themselves tasks and "things to complete" among each episode, even it didn't make sense or was bad for the sake of pacing (and you have to admit the whole thing is pretty horrid).

While I agree with the basic idea(the writing is horrendously sloppy and relies way too much on contrivances), I think that's a lot more easily explained by:

1. Wanting to avoid giving the player ANY WORK. Being horrified at the prospect of the player actually thinking and then having their brain explode from frustration, things "just happen" because a logical reason that stems from the player's actions would require something resembling effort on the part of the player.

2. Multiple chapter lead designers not really working out how episodes flow into each other. We know that scripts are written and episodes are designed by different people, which works when you're making a sitcom, but more oversight needs to be taken when something is more narrative. We actually saw a bit of this in Tales of Monkey Island(if Elaine knew [spoiler]about the afterlife and that Guybrush would come back as implied at the end of part 5, why was she crying at his death?[/spoiler]). There is a disturbing lack of inter-episode oversight or communication. You can see this especially in the stories of Young Emmett and Trixie. Their lives are RUINED in one episode, and then magically fixed in the next. Episode designers and the script between them implies to me that writers simply are NOT working in tandem, making the episode to episode story nothing short of a jumbled mess.

3. Time Crunch. I seriously can't believe that the lack of anything outside the main options makes sense from a "new player" standpoint. There must have been some serious scheduling issues with this project for them release a game that is THIS bare bones content-wise. Even if the game was easy, they SHOULD have been able to produce funny dialogs for the few actions that you can perform otherwise. Is it a stretch to say that Marty should react to trying to use newspapers in the recycling bins? That certain people deserve more than a "I don't think they'd be interested in that" comment when shown George's picture? Particularly, you know, George? They stuffed in a bare skeleton of a game, and I don't think they ELECTED to or NEGLECTED to include the meat, part of it has to be that they simply didn't have TIME.

This logic makes no sense. I can also say "The last time they tried to make a Back to the Future video game, we got the shit that was LJN's version, which Bob Gale told fans not to buy", or "the last time they released a game on consoles", or "the last time they made a game starring Marty", and it would be just as relevant. Are you really telling me that NO MATTER WHAT ELSE CHANGES, Bob Gale's involvement or lack thereof is the ONE THING that will doom a project? Do you REALLY think LJN would have done an excellent job if he was involved? Because the NES games were bad for GAMEPLAY reasons too, you know.

I think if he was involved, he would have kicked LJN to the curb. But then again, LJN never worked with the producers, which is why they produced shit constantly.